As Donald Trump was addressing a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, July 13, a bullet from a would-be assassin’s gun scraped through his right ear. The former president was just days away from being nominated as the Republican Party challenger to the incumbent President, Joe Biden. As the bullet hit him, he had the presence of mind to duck. When he got up and was escorted to his car, surrounded by the Secret Service agents, Trump raised his fist and yelled: “Fight, fight, fight.”
It took just a few seconds, but these few seconds may have changed America’s political landscape and the course of history. It was a sheer chance, a divine intervention, that Trump escaped those bullets.
There have been several attempts to assassinate sitting US presidents in the past. Four were successful. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated in 1865, followed by James Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F Kennedy (1963). Besides these, there have been several unsuccessful assassination attempts on US presidents, the most recent being of President Ronal Reagan in 1981.
In this instance, the shooter was shot dead on the spot by security agencies. Another rally-goer also died in the shooting. As America grapples with the aftermath of the attempt on Trump’s life, one must recognize the fact that he isn’t only a former president, he is also the main political rival of President Biden, the incumbent, in the upcoming presidential elections in November.
Security Lapse?
Before we analyse what brought us here, let us quickly discuss what is on everyone’s mind: How did the security agencies mess this up so badly? People who watched the viral video of the shooting were struck by what seemed like complete incompetence of some of the security agents — fumbling with the holstering of their firearms, rearranging their jackets, putting on sunglasses, aimlessly shuffling and moving around, etc.
Some Secret Service agents’ actions have brought focus to the agency’s DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – policies. With DEI policies in place, the agencies have been working hard to increase the number of women employees. Was the quality compromised to fulfill the diversity requirements?
The head of the Secret Service, Kimberley Cheatle, has also come under the scanner. Cheatle, a political appointee, wanted to increase diversity and raise the number of women in the Secret Service to 30 per cent by 2030 from the current 24 per cent. Under Cheatle’s watch, the agency deleted many text messages about the US Capitol’s January 6, 2021, breach. The lost phone data could have shed light on the incident. The agency claimed the phone data was lost during a routine technology update.
Then there were news reports about completely missing the presence of Thomas Mathew Crooks, 20, the would-be assassin from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, despite warnings from the crowd who saw the shooter with a gun on the roof of the building. According to press reports, “One local police officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed his rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder.”
Target:Trump
To many, Trump’s near assassination was shocking but not surprising. Trump has been the target of vicious and vitriolic attacks from the day he declared his candidacy for the top US job on 16 June 2015. Initially, no one took Trump’s candidacy seriously. Maggie Haberman of The Times laughed on live TV when one of her fellow panelists suggested that Trump may win the race.
As Trump’s stocks rose, his political opponents and the US mainstream media hounded him. When it became apparent that he may win, his political rival, Hilary Clinton, a former First Lady and Secretary of State of the United States, sponsored an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the Russians were colluding with Donald Trump to meddle in the US elections.
Trump is one of the most vilified politicians in the media and other leftwing elite circles. Beyond political criticism, Trump has been a target of political witch-hunt. He was the target of the Mueller investigation that alleged Trump colluded with the Russians to interfere in the US elections. The investigation, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, concluded that the investigation did not establish that the members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
Trump was impeached twice by the partisan Democrat-majority US Congress. He has also been the target of intense lawfare where the Biden administration and the Democrats weaponized government agencies to prosecute and persecute their main political rival. He was slapped with several frivolous criminal charges, and a sham case in New York convicted him in the “hush-money” case.
His opponents have demonized Trump no length. He has often been compared with Hitler. The media projects him, without evidence, as a threat to democracy, claiming that a Trump administration will be a totalitarian government trampling on democratic principles and human rights. Many Democrats, including some high-ranking functionaries, have openly called for physical violence against Trump.
The failed Trump assassination exemplifies the polarization and toxicity in American political and social circles. It has also highlighted many inherent contradictions of American society and polity. While the social ramifications of this incident will be discussed and debated for a long time, Trump has emerged as a much stronger leader, regardless of November’s results. His defiant fist-waving has firmly established him as a political leader to reckon with.
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